The 20th Anniversary of Raw - Boring!

A little bit about myself to give you an idea of how I can (or can't) enjoy wrestling; just-turned-19-year-old studying full-time at university in England.
This means I can hardly ever watch RAW live as it ends at around 4.15 AM and I often wake up 3 hours later. So, I usually find myself checking the results on EWN and deciding whether or not it is worth watching. How many times does this happen? I'd say literally about 1 out of 15 times. Yep. So this is written in the POV of a 25% hardcore, 75% casual viewer.

So, anyway, the 20th Anniversary of Monday Night RAW! Thought this should be good... So I stayed up, and instead of revising for an exam I had the next day (which I was soooo behind on) I chose to watch it.

Opening Title/Theme:
This was a pleasant surprise! Really seemed to set the mood for what was surely going to be an epic night, reminiscent of the past 20 years!
No classic or special 20th Anniversary stage? Okay...
JBL is here! Nice! But no JR?

First Segment:
So, Vinny Mac comes out and says his thankyou's... then calls himself a genius. Okay. He then announces a match between Ziggler and Cena. Come on Vince, we've seen that a hundred times already! But he has something up his sleeve... a CAGE MATCH! Yay.Then Big Show comes out and gives his boring heel crap.. and this new Face ADR interrupts! Don't know about this face turn, not sure if it will work. Anyways, standard heel-face interaction with ADR coming out on top blah blah blah.

Nothing really of interest then. Moving on...

RAW Moment: Bob Barker
I thought it was a nice touch to relive some (surely to most) classic moments.
Orton vs Barrett:
Decent match (for WWE standards), happy for Barrett to pick up the win! Still surely not a RAW worth missing revision time for?
Eve/Booker/T-Lo backstage:
Expected Booker to add the "loser fired" stipulation after reading the online reports but no, just the "stripped of the title if you get DQ'd" stipulation.
Kane/Bryan backstage:
Okay, these guys are hilarious! Fun segment. Still think DB needs to at least trim, if not shave, that beard off! Guy looks like a Highlander! If you don't know who they are, you need to watch some old RAW shows... Wait a sec, where are the old faces of the past 20 years?? Hmmm...
Kane vs Sandow:
At this point in time I thought it's best to look through some revision material I'd brought with me, after all it'll be a standard WWE slow match. Did make me miss most of the match... Stopped taking notes because of it, didn't wanna miss more than I already had, although I don't think I missed much.
Mick Foley inducted into HOF:
About time! This man is a real legend of wrestling. Hopefully some fun interaction with some legends of the past! But no, it's The Shield. And they beat poor Mick up. I wonder who's going to save the day... Ryback obvsiously! With back-up in the form of Sheamus. Seriously, how many thousand more times do we have to see this exact same thing??? Was getting pretty frustrated at this point, had my revision material put away for this segment.

The little video package of gimmicks was hilarious! A nice little walk through memory lane! Although some were unrecognisable to me... A little before my time perhaps, but looked ridiculous nonetheless! Maybe a gimmick battle royal?! Obviously not...
Starting to think this is a regular RAW.

Eve vs Kaitlyn:
I'm not going to even pretend here. I revised for this match but kept an eye on the ending, to see Eve's reported leave from WWE. But it didn't happen. Okay then... Maybe she's not going this week (or preferably ever )

Raw Moment: Donald Trump vs Vince.
Good times
Punk vs Brodus Clay:
Match was decent to be fair. But no real substance to it. Did it tell an in-ring story?
Promo: standard (but good) Punk trash talk. If there's any UK football fans out there, it was quite reminiscent of Rafa's famous "Facts" rant on Fergie!

Another nice RAW moments package, this tiem on vehicular moments. Taking this as confirmation that there'll be no returning legends then. But there's still the Rock Concert to look forward to! And nice little recap anyways.

Mick/Rock/Vickie segment was funny and I enjoyed that! Rock n' sock had some good times!

Sheamus vs 3MB Over the Top Rope Challenge:
Seriously, what are a redneck, Scot and Indian doing together in a rock band? It is literally one of the worst groups in WWE history that I can think of. Did a bit more revision here.

Cena interview (by Josh Matthews):
Actually found this pretty funny with the namedrops and mentioning WW Federation, which I didn't think I'd ever hear again tbh! But was otherwise a Standard SuperCena promo.

Uh oh. MizTV:
Okay, straight up. Miz is my most hated wrestler to ever "grace" a wrestling ring. Harsh you might say. Why on earth is that AS93? Here's why: most of you agree that David Arquette winning the WCW title was plain ridiculous right? He was just an actor right? Well so is Miz. He can't wrestle for sh*t. All he does is cut promos and host a in-ring talkshow every week.
Anyways here's Ric Flair with Miz on yet another MizTV... I thought (hopefully) that a few legends or old faces might come out but I just got false hopes... But was a fun/interesting segment anyway, along with the ever-impressing Cesaro, even thought it did seem to drag with pointless chat. However, I'd just like to point out that Miz is simply not a face and does not pull it off whatsoever in my (biased) opinion.
Bryan vs Rhodes:
Again, did some revision, I'm guilty! This cut right through to Jim Ross' arrival, but I did see the news on Eve...

Who reveals on the WWE app she quits. Well that's a dignified way to leave the company. You will be missed Eve.

But good ol' JR! Wouldn't be the same without this man!

Ziggler vs Cena:
Actually a pretty decent match for WWE standards, and considering we've seen these two wrestle like every week for the past 2 months. Big E. Langston on the outside provided a different flavour.

Rock Concert:
I was looking forward to this, however, using the Rock to sing isn't using him in his best capacity in my opinion. I was still hopeful this would be an epic segment with a big celebratory finale.
Well his rip on Heyman was hilarious! As was his destruction of Vickie! But irrelevant, let's be honest...
And his confrontation with Punk was heated and added a little bite to the feud. But that's it.

Conclusion:
Another abysmal RAW. I was so disappointed in missing out lots of valuable revision watching this pile of crap. Expected waaaay too much from WWE. Even as a regular RAW it was tiresome, let alone for the 20 year anniversary! WWE have no creativity whatsoever with their advancing of rivalries and storylines, and their matches are hardly ever worth watching! The surprise factor is also so underutilised. Fix up WWE.

I think what people are trying to say is that it was better than an average Raw.What with Cage match,Rock & Punk,Ric Flair and Vince on.But it didnt live up to the hype of a 20th anniversary show (although they didnt hype it that much) so people were a bit dissapointed that there was no HBK,HHH,Taker,Austin or Bret

I think what people are trying to say is that it was better than an average Raw.What with Cage match,Rock & Punk,Ric Flair and Vince on.But it didnt live up to the hype of a 20th anniversary show (although they didnt hype it that much) so people were a bit dissapointed that there was no HBK,HHH,Taker,Austin or Bret

Pretty much summed it up man. But, in my opinion, it wasn't even too special of a Raw; if it wasn't for the cage match, what would have made it different from the Slammy Show a few weeks ago, or Rock's return? Not much, but again, that's just my opinion and some may not agree.

Try going to youtube and watching his feud with Ryback. Not to mention, 4 consecutive screw job title defenses. Sure, he's fantastic. What a fighter.

Why would I go to YouTube when I have been watching anyway? Good one anyway though. Sorry did you see Punk run away during any of those? Must have just been on your screen that he did. He is a heel, it's in Heel 101 that they cheat to win, if he just beat everyone clean he wouldn't have any heat and would still be getting cheered every week. But yes he is fantastic and a great fighter.